Post open heart surgery lifting routine

brtgl

I'm in my fifties and was seemingly healthy, but learned last year that I needed open heart surgery. Fast forward to nine months later. I feel normal again and am back to all my previous activities (snow skiing, playing pickleball, etc.), but I've lost a lot of muscle. I've never been much of a weight lifter, but have dumbbells (pair of 5lb, 15lb, and 20lb) and an incline bench at home and want to get toned up. I did the first five of the following two days ago. I was too worn out to do the last three.

I want to build back my chest, shoulders, and arms the most (mostly chest). How should I set up a workout routine? How many days rest should I take between each muscle group? I searched online and have seen all kinds of answers, so I thought I'd ask here among experts. Thanks for any advice.

1. Flat Bench Press
2. Incline Bench Press
3. Biceps Curls
4. Tricep Extension
5. Shoulder Press
6. Bent Over Rows
7. Upright Rows
8. Bent Over Raises

Retroguy2000

Don't push too hard at the start. Get your form right, don't burn yourself out or injure yourself, you don't need to go to failure, then progressive overload over time with higher weight / more reps / more sets / etc.

10-12 working sets per week for each of chest and back is a good start for a beginner, i.e. not including warmups. Two days rest is probably enough for arms, maybe not for chest/back or quads, three days is probably better especially considering your age.

You should maybe look into getting a set of adjustable dumbbells. GarageGymReviews on YT has reviewed a lot of them.

Never skip leg day! Your body overall will get more benefit doing compound moves for legs, chest and back than doing curls, and your arms will get some work doing those anyway. My suggestion for you is three workouts per week, first and last being chest/back, middle being legs and arms.

Get more protein too, about 0.7g per pound is a good metric unless you're already very lean, maybe go a little higher if so.